This invention relates to measuring and controlling vehicle sideslip by using the global positioning system (GPS), and more particularly to deriving the sideslip angle of a vehicle and other parameters based on GPS measurements.
It is well known that information about certain states of vehicle motion can be used to control the operation of the vehicle. These vehicle states typically include wheel slip, body sideslip angle, and tire sideslip angle. Theoretically, knowledge of the instantaneous values of these three vehicle states could be used by appropriate vehicle stability control systems, e.g., acceleration, steering direction or wheel brakes to correct dangerous states or avoid them. Considerations of stability control systems requiring wheel slip and body sideslip angle are well known and are discussed in many references including, for example, S. Kimbrough, xe2x80x9cCoordinated Braking and Steering Control for Emergency Stops and Accelerationsxe2x80x9d, Proceedings of the WAM ASME, Atlanta, Ga. 1991, pp. 229-244. The challenge, however, resides in deploying appropriate sensors for accurately measuring vehicle parameters and deriving from these measurements the vehicle states for stability control purposes.
The prior art teaches the use of dedicated (and frequently costly) on-board sensors for measuring a number of parameters. For example, wheel speed sensors are commonly used to measure wheel speed. Many prior art systems teach to estimate some of the vehicle states, e.g., tire slip, by comparing values from wheel speed sensors to an estimate of the vehicle velocity (which is oftentimes computed from the four wheel speeds). However, under high slip circumstances, where stability control systems are most often required, this estimate of vehicle speed becomes less accurate. In addition, many stability control systems must integrate noisy and biased on-board sensors in order to obtain slip angle estimates for tire and body slip. Other systems utilize non-linear observers to estimate the slip angel from a yaw rate measurement. In all of these cases, the error associated with estimation places severe constraints on the control algorithm employed. Other methods for estimating vehicle sideslip angle include vision or a vehicle speed-measuring unit.
The global positioning system (GPS) promises to deliver some of these critical values and eliminate the reliance of on-board sensors. GPS provides the ability to determine a body""s position anywhere on the surface of the globe. Atmospheric conditions, injected noise called Selective Availability (SA), and other random noise corrupts the positioning accuracy. However, differential corrections, known as differential GPS (DGPS), can eliminate most of these errors and the Doppler shift in the carrier-phase ranging signal provides good velocity values without any differential corrections. Additionally, a four antennae carrier-phase GPS unit can be used to provide 0.1xc2x0 attitude measurements in roll, pitch and yaw and accurate attitude rate of change measurements without a correction reference station, as described by C. E. Cohen et al., xe2x80x9cFlight Tests of Attitude Determination Using GPS Compared Against as Inertial Navigation Unitxe2x80x9d, Navigation: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Vol. 41, No. 1, Spring 1994 and P. Y. Montgomery et al., xe2x80x9cAnalysis of Angular Velocity Determination Using GPSxe2x80x9d, Proceedings of ION GPS 1994, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1994.
The prior art teaches to equip vehicles with GPS receivers to obtain vehicle position measurements. For example, a ground based GPS and one carried by a moving vehicle can be used for measuring its precise position. This approach is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,572,218 to Cohen et al., who use it to obtain precise locations of airplanes rather than vehicles.
Measurements obtained from GPS receivers have already been used on numerous occasions to determine the velocity of a vehicle and use this measurement in vehicle control systems. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,152,546 Daigle recognizes that provision of a wheel slip and slide correction system in which the monitored or triggered variable is different from the control variable can be used to control trains. Daigle""s wheel slip and slide system requires knowledge of train velocity to correct the motion of the train, e.g., the system can implement a torque reduction if the actual wheel velocity varies from the computed velocity. Daigle teaches that the speed of the train can be obtained, among other, from a measurement performed by a GPS sensor.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,755,291 and 5,911,769 to Orbach et al. teach a system for regulating wheel slippage of a vehicle carrying or trailing an implement. Their system includes sensors for sensing the vehicle""s apparent speed and ground speed and an input device. Orbach et al. indicate that GPS can be used to obtain sequential position signals of the vehicle and determine from them the true ground speed. Specifically, ground speed is equal to the change between sequential positions of the vehicle divided by elapsed time. The system also includes a control circuit configured to generate a slip signal that can be used to control the implement.
The use of GPS for gathering position and motion data for a large number of vehicles and use of such data for traffic monitoring and management have also been considered. For example, GPS has proven effective when implemented on vehicles for land navigation as described by E. Abbot et al., xe2x80x9cLand-Vehicle Navigation Using GPSxe2x80x9d, Proceedings of the IEEE, January 1999, Vol. 87, No. 1, pp. 145-162 as well as for lanekeeping as described by V. Morellas et al., xe2x80x9cPreview Based Control of a Tractor Trailer Using DPGS for Road Departure Accidentsxe2x80x9d, Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Boston, Mass., November 1997.
Pursuing a similar vein, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,983,161 and 6,275,773 issued to Lemelson et al. teach a GPS based vehicle collision avoidance and warning system. The system uses GPS satellite ranging signals and pseudolite carrier phase ambiguity resolution signal from a fixed earth based station to continuously determine a kinematic tracking position of vehicles on a pathway with centimeter accuracy. The GPS-based position is communicated with other status information among a plurality of vehicles and control centers. The data are processed and analyzed in neural networks in one vehicle to identify, rank and evaluate collision hazards.
The GPS measurements disclosed by Lemelson et al. include determination of vehicle attitude with the aid of multiple GPS antennae placed on the extremities of the vehicle. A comparison of phase differences in signals received simultaneously from the GPS antennae is used to determine the attitude of the vehicle relative to a reference plane in space or on the ground, or relative to a predetermined direction over the earth""s surface. Lemelson et al. use separate fuzzy logic control inference rules to sense unusual vehicle attitude, e.g., with respect to the North, and generate attitude compensated collision warning information. Further information about various differential GPS techniques and studies of GPS antennae are discussed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,384,293; 4,418,358; 4,599,620; 4,644,358; 4,719,469; 4,870,422; 4,963,889; 4,994,812; 5,101,356; 5,177,489; 5,185,610; 5,296,861; 5,347,286 and 5,406,489. The prior art also teaches the use of GPS systems to provide aircraft heading information as described by R. P. Kornfeld et al., xe2x80x9cSingle Antenna GPS Based Aircraft Attitude Determinationxe2x80x9d, Proceedings of the ION Technical Meeting, Long Beach, Calif., January 1998 and D. Gebre-Egziabher et al., xe2x80x9cA Low-Cost GPS/Inertial Attitude Heading Reference System (AHRS) for General Aviation Applicationxe2x80x9d, Proceedings of the 1998 IEEE Position Location and Navigation Symposium, April 1998, pp. 518-525.
In an attempt to use GPS to derive more accurate measurements and exercise more control over a vehicle U.S. Pat. No. 6,052,647 to Parkinson et al. teaches a method and system for automatic control of vehicles based on carrier phase differential GPS. Parkinson""s system employs carrier phase differential GPS to determine both vehicle position and attitude very precisely. The system also compensates for antenna motion due to vehicle roll and pitch caused by ground disturbances. This system is designed for real-time guidance and control of a vehicle. Although this system goes a long way to integrating GPS in real-time vehicle control, it does not consider wheel sideslip or body sideslip angles of the vehicle.
In sum, the above prior art techniques teach how to integrate GPS sensors and measurements obtained from them in vehicle monitoring and control systems to, in some cases, overcome the problems associated with on-board sensors. None of these techniques, however, can be used to yield information about the body sideslip angle and tire sideslip angles of a particular vehicle to enable real-time control.
In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for determining sideslip angles of the body and tires of a terrestrial vehicle moving on a set of wheels with the aid of the global positioning system (GPS). It is a further object of the invention to use knowledge of the body and tire sideslip angles derived with the aid of GPS in a stability control system.
It is another object of the invention to provide a method that takes advantage of GPS to provide a simple, accurate and cost-effective measurement of the body and tire sideslip angles.
Yet another object of the invention is to ensure that the method and control system can be used in conjunction with measurements of other vehicle states to provide for accurate vehicle control.
These and other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent upon reading the specification.
The objects and advantages of the invention are achieved by a method for determining a sideslip angle of a terrestrial vehicle that moves on wheels. A qualifying terrestrial vehicle is a car on four-wheels, a truck on four or more wheels, or any other vehicle on two or more wheels. The method relies on the use of a global positioning system (GPS) receiver mounted in the vehicle to measure a horizontal velocity of the vehicle. The horizontal velocity can be derived by dividing a distance between two position measurements into the time elapsed between the measurements, or from a Doppler measurement or else by dividing the difference between two carrier phase measurements into the time elapsed between the two measurements. The GPS receiver has two antennas to measure an attitude of the vehicle. The horizontal velocity and attitude are used in deriving the sideslip angle of the vehicle at the global positioning receiver.
Once the value of the sideslip angle at the GPS receiver is known, it can be translated to any other point on the vehicle to determine specific sideslip angles corresponding to vehicle states which can be used in a stability control system. The sideslip angle is translated to a center of gravity of the vehicle to obtain a body sideslip angle xcex2 of said vehicle. The sideslip angle is translated to one of the wheels to obtain a sideslip angle of the wheel, and in case the wheel bears a tire, this is a tire sideslip angle xcex1. Additionally a cornering stiffness of the wheel is derived from its tire sideslip angle xcex1.
In most cases where the GPS receiver is mounted at a mounting location away from the center of gravity of the vehicle translation of the sideslip angle to another point of the vehicle involves accounting for vehicle angular velocity at that point in comparison to the vehicle angular velocity at the global positioning receiver. It is also important that the horizontal velocity be corrected by a correction factor related to the mounting location of the GPS receiver.
Depending on the application, additional vehicle states are determined as needed. For example, when the method of the invention is used for vehicle control purposes, it is convenient to obtain a wheel slip. The wheel slip is obtained by measuring a wheel speed of at least one wheel on which the vehicle moves and taking a difference between an x-component of horizontal velocity, which is the velocity component along the frame of the vehicle, and the wheel speed.
In accordance with an alternative embodiment of the method, the GPS receiver is used for measuring the horizontal velocity and a gyroscope is provided in the vehicle for measuring its attitude. The attitude can be obtained, for example, by integrating the gyroscope signal. The sideslip angle at the global positioning receiver is then derived from the horizontal velocity and the attitude as before. The measurement of the horizontal velocity, since it is derived from the GPS receiver, requires some time, i.e., the measurement has a latency or time offset with respect to the gyroscope measurement. In order to improve the performance of the method, the time offset is determined and the measurement of the horizontal velocity is corrected for the time offset.
The invention further includes a stability control system for stabilizing the motion of a terrestrial vehicle. In one embodiment the control system has a GPS receiver for measuring the horizontal velocity and attitude of the vehicle. In another embodiment, the control system has a GPS receiver for measuring the horizontal velocity and a gyroscope for measuring the attitude. The control system also has a processing unit for deriving the sideslip angle at the global positioning receiver from the horizontal velocity and attitude. The control system also has a control mechanism for using the sideslip angle to stabilize the vehicle. It is understood, that the control mechanism can first translate the sideslip angle to obtain the body or tire sideslip angles xcex2 or xcex1. In a preferred embodiment of the stability control system, the control mechanism has a Kalman filter configured to use the vehicle state information to stabilize the vehicle.